Every marketer strives to create a campaign which enhances the brand image. It can take teams months to create the perfect interaction with the customer. Today consumers have opinions, and they have the power to communicate. The question which the marketing teams have to answer is how to cater to these consumers and survive the increasing competition. While still focusing on long-term campaigns, teams need to be flexible for short-term changes. An increasing number of organizations are integrating different aspects of agile in their creative and marketing services team for one huge benefit which is increased productivity.
Integrating agile methodology
When team members witness late nights and weekend work, the agile methodology can be adopted. Most of the marketing and creative teams work with multiple projects and are rarely satisfied with their work. Owing to the bulk of work, the team members may often feel that hardly any work is being done. It is difficult for creative individuals to estimate how long a piece of work will take them. By integrating agile, you will be able to gauge exactly what the team is capable of producing and within what duration of time. It is possible to break the work down into sprints and iterations for improved manageability.
Breaking work into sprints and iterations
A sprint is usually a delivery cycle which ranges from one to four weeks. The agile model emphasizes that the entire team should be an integrated whole. Frequent communication is one key aspect which makes this integration possible. Meetings are held daily to ascertain the day’s work and the dependencies. Open communication allows the team members to express their views promptly without any hesitation. Instead of working on a project until its completion and the presenting the end result, the project tasks are broken down into iterations, the duration of which are approximately two weeks. The team works on one iteration at a time which is followed by a review by the client and the acceptance phase. This brings a clear structure on how work should be done.
Aiming for the perfect campaign
After adopting agile creative teams can go back and forth with the client as they aim to achieve the perfect result. For big changes it leaves a lot of room for changes while for smaller projects there is an opportunity to release a campaign every few weeks, see the results and tweak it accordingly. The campaigns can be tweaked with the inputs which are received from the consumers—the most important critics. It is easier for the team members to prioritize what is critical and needs to be done first. It helps them to know whether they are behind or ahead of the schedule.
Advantages of using agile
The agile model has several advantages. It helps marketers to easily estimate project cost and timelines. It ensures early release of a workable product. The team members can easily learn and improve based on the real-world feedback. Errors can be identified without delay. As the customer needs and tastes change constantly, marketing teams need to adapt quickly to which is easier with agile. The company priorities may be shifting perennially which requires the team to be flexible. Further, with the emergence of new marketing technologies, teams need to change the way work is processed. By promoting adaptive planning and allowing rapid response to change, agile answers all the above needs.
Choosing the right team
Agile project management is about understanding self-organizing teams and the interaction between different roles which contribute to the development process. However the team members may have different personalities. There may be people who are stuck in their ways and do not want to change. There may be other who are on the lookout for the next new thing. You can consider picking these people and starting off with a pilot. As the work is broken down into sprints and the team gets the work done, there is a sense of accomplishment.
The concluding note
Studies have revealed that agile firms have been able to grow their revenues 37% times faster and increase profits 30% more than their non-agile counterparts. Adopting agile is one thing which marketing and creative teams can do to optimize their process. It is a wise choice for teams who are trying to be more reactive to the changes in the market, who are trying to focus on their customers,and are aiming at working more effectively. An agile approach cannot be adopted overnight. To be truly agile, teams will have to commit fully and should be prepared well in advance to adapt to the whole process.
